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November 2, 2020 • 65 mins
Interview with California State Senate Candidate Houman Salem
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(00:00):
This is the FCB Radio Network,Real Talk worldwide online at FCB radio dot
com. Kick the tires and lightthe fires. Beg you do go wrong

(00:43):
riding when everything else sounds wrong.This is sounds right with Jen and Scott.
Good morning, This sounds right withJen and Scott. I'm Scott hounsel

(01:03):
Over there in her very beautiful corneris Jennifer Vanlar. Jen, how are
you doing? Wonderful? It's agreat day because the Dodgers are in the
World Series. Dude, I can'tget over it last night out that when
Bellinger hit that Homer. So beautiful, so beautiful, very so much fun
to say the least. But we'vegot a great show today, and as

(01:26):
much as we want to talk aboutthe World Series and things like that,
we've got plenty of time for thatlater on the show. Right now,
we want to get right in becausewe have an awesome guest here this morning.
We are thrilled and honored to havea guest with us this morning.
I'm gonna let Jim bring her inright now. Okay, So we have
a powerful woman from the California Legislaturenewly elected in a special election this year,

(01:49):
Senator Melissa Melendez, and she representsan area down around Lake Elsinore.
If you're familiar with California, sowere southern California. And she's in one
of the lead voices for true conservatismin California for at least the past five
years that I've really been paying attentionto what she's been doing. And this
past week, as we referred toin an earlier show, the California GOP

(02:12):
put out some private ballot boxes throughoutthe state to basically do pandemic friendly ballot
harvestings, how I like to referto it. And the California Attorney General
and Secretary of State we're not veryhappy about that at all, even though
they're doing the same thing at leastin one district, and tried to call
them illegal ballot boxes, sent acease and desist letter, and the California

(02:34):
Goop told them to pound sand andI was so proud of them. But
Senator Melendez did a really great jobon Twitter of articulating all of the problems
with this law, and so Iwanted to have her on to explain to
our listeners because even in California,a lot of Democrats even were saying that
can't possibly be the law, andit is the law. So I will

(02:57):
turn it over to Senator Melendez andthank you for coming on our show today.
Oh thank you very much for havingme. Guys. I really appreciate
it because every opportunity I get toget the word out about this I take
because there are a lot of peoplewho cannot believe that this law is allowed.
I will just go through for yourlisteners what the ballot harvesting law allows

(03:17):
in California. And I'm not makingthis up. Trust me, I could
make this up even if I wantedto. But ballot harvesting, you know,
it used to be where it wasyour immediate family, your spouse,
maybe a child or something like thatcould turn in your ballot and you would
sign the envelope. They would signthe envelope and they could turn it in
for you. For some reason,you weren't able to do so yourself.
The ballot harvesting law, it nowallows anyone, and I mean anyone,

(03:40):
to collect as many ballots as theypossibly can and turn them in. I
mean I could bring in a Uhaul truck full of ballots if I wanted
to. The law allows that.It's the vote by mail ballots collected by
a ballot harvester do not have toinclude the name or signature of the person
harvesting that ballot on the on theenvelope in order for it to be ballots.

(04:01):
In other words, there's a spoton there where the person collecting the
ballot the harvester is supposed to signit. But if they don't sign it,
that ballot still gets collected. Sothere's nothing in the law that you
know, there's no enforcement of thatparticular element of the law. The ballot
harvester doesn't have to document how manyballots they've collected. There's no chain of

(04:24):
custody. They don't even have totell the person who they're working for.
It It could be an SEIU member, it could be um, you know
whoever. They don't have to tellthe vote or who they're working for,
or that they're being paid to collectthose ballots. Because a law only says
you can't be paid on a perballot piece. You can. They can
pay you for a day of collectingballots. They just can't pay you per

(04:47):
ballot, but they can still getpaid um and the election officials don't have
to get any identifying information from theperson collecting the ballots. So again the
signatures there the envelope, but youdon't have to sign it. And we
asked our registrar that question very specifically. You know, what happens if someone
shows up with ten boxes of ballotsand drops them off at the registrar's doorstep,

(05:11):
what do you do? And shesaid, well, by law,
we have to count them. Andwe asked, well, do you,
I mean, do you have somethingin place to question the person and perhaps
you know, I don't know,notify law enforcement. There could be some
broad going on. And she justkind of shrugged her shoulders and said,
no, the law doesn't require that. So non California residents, illegal immigrants,

(05:33):
for nationals, any entity can goout and collect these ballots anyone.
So you can imagine that Republicans votedagainst this particular law. However, Democrats,
with their supermajority, past it.So now what we're doing as Republicans
is we're operating within the lines ofthe law. If Democrats can ballot harvest,

(05:53):
then so are we. And that'swhere we have the problem. Enter
alex Pedia and the Attorney General,Savior Bissara, who said, oh no,
no, you can't do this.And we said, actually we can
because you guys passed the law.So they sent their cease and desist letter.
They tried to threaten people, Theytried to intimidate and scare them with
the long rum and the law,which didn't work because we're legal. What

(06:15):
we're doing is absolutely legal, andwe're going to continue doing it. We
are continuing to do it. Infact, I'll be out collecting ballots this
afternoon, so they can whine aboutit all they want, but it's their
law. I think that that's what'sso funny about this is that they're the
ones that codified this. I mean, I remember working in state elections for

(06:38):
the last decade where we were tryingto come up with creative ways around ballot
harvesting laws to be able to collectballots from voters and did everything from you
know, encouraging them to go aroundand get their family, you know that
have them all their family fill outtheir ballots, or the stamp program like
we were using up in the CentralValley on Andy vid X rays, these

(07:01):
things that we're trying to get around. Now they've passed the law. They've
changed the law so that they canballot harvest, and that now they're mad
that Republicans are using the law totheir advantage. I mean, that's all
comes down to. And it iskind of funny that they actually thought we
would never take advantage of this lawtoo. I mean, that's kind of
I guess speaks to what their impressionis of us as an organization for them

(07:24):
to think that we wouldn't get inon the game too, But there's no
reason for us not to. UnlessDemocrats want to go back and reverse this
law that they put into place,then we have every right to exercise our
ability to collect these ballots as well, which we are going to do.
And we have been talking about doingthis really since the last election, of
how we're going to organize and howwe're going to make this work for us,

(07:46):
because typically Republicans are not going tohand their ballot over to some stranger
that just shows up at their doorstep, but they will take it to other
places that they feel comfortable with orthey have an affiliation with. So that's
what we're doing. It's all perfectlylegal. And you know, there's still
some people who were tentative about doingthis, and to them, we say,

(08:07):
that's fine. You know, youcan mail your ballot in. You
can go vote in person, youcan drop it off personally at the registrar,
whatever your preference. We're just tryingto give you another option to make
sure that these ballots get turned in. And I will tell you just a
personal story. We had the EastValley Republican women out in the desert were
collecting ballots. They weren't using oneof the GOP's boxes that we have deployed.

(08:28):
They had their own box and theywent to turn them in at the
registrar's office and we're told that theywould need extra scrutiny because they were using,
you know, a collection box.And we said, no, no,
no, no, no. Holdon, that's incorrect because first of
all, the ballot boxes it's GOOPdeployed are perfectly legal. And you saw
that the Secretary of State did decideto lock it back, but they don't

(08:48):
get to decide that certain ballots needextra scrutiny because we don't even know what
that means. But you can seehow these registrars are already trying to kind
of get in line behind the Secretaryof State in the general either because they
agree with them or they're afraid,you know, I'm not sure which my
guess it's probably the former rather thanthe latter. But people have to be

(09:11):
vigilant about this when just because somebodyin an official capacity says you can't do
this, that doesn't mean you don'thave the right to question and say,
really will prove it, because thathappens a lot, right. People just
think, well, they're in charge, so they know, and there's nothing
I can do. But there actuallyis something that you can do. That
was the most maddening part about allof this over the last week was when

(09:33):
they first came out I think itwas last Monday, talking about how it
was illegal and they were going toshut this down. I was tweeting back
at them, cite to me thelaw that says or the code where it
says that, because I don't seeit. And then in their cease and
Assist letter, the links that theygave or what they cited didn't say what
they said it was saying. Andso they're in charge of this law and

(09:54):
they're they're putting out misinformation to votersfor their own purposes. And but the
other thing that's maddening too is thatthe news came out over the last week
or two, about these emergency regulationsthat Paedia put in place without public comment
on the election, to where youcan have multiple ballots in one envelope return

(10:15):
People could even mark up their sampleballot and return it. You could even
just write on a note or letterit says in the regulation who you want
to vote for and put that inthere, so you could potentially have an
envelope with twelve quote unquote ballots inthere, whether it's official ballots, sample
ballots, note cards, and aslong as every voter has signed the outside
of the envelope, they have tocount it. And to me, that's

(10:37):
so insecure, and why isn't thepress talking about that? Right? It's
ridiculous. I mean, at thispoint, all you have to do is
write on a sticky note and signit with the big X who you're voting
for, and that seems to besomething that's going to be counted. I
mean, at this point, whydon't they just let people, you know,
dial it in, just call in, and you can just call on
a day long and cast your voteover and over and over again. Because

(10:58):
that's basically the point of which weride. This is got dancing with the
stars. Call this number for right, No, really, that's that's basically
what it is. I mean.And then they still have the commercials that
they're running with that thirty five milliondollar contract that they gave to a by
Team Biden company. They're still runningthose ads even though the money hasn't been

(11:20):
approved. So this is all kindof part of the big strategy for them,
I think, and that is toerode the integrity of this election.
The problem is, you know,they are the ones running the state,
so it's the fox guarding henhouse.You know, who are you going to
get? Ordinarily you would get thestate attorney general involved to put a stop
to this, but you can't evendo that because they're all in the bag
together. Single single party rule hasobviously affected the state negatively. I mean,

(11:46):
if you if you look at thepoint of view that they were going
out and saying it was it's evenalmost comical, like the op said,
we're not changing anything, go poundsin and so thea of the the election
officials come out and said, oh, you know what, they changed their
boxes and so they agreed to changesome things and we'll we'll do this in

(12:07):
California. Goops, like we're notchanging anything. Well, they've agreed to
change it, and they and sothey're trying to spike the football like somehow
they didn't get scared off this bywith the law that they just had,
that that we happened or the Californiagoop happened to to allow for some changes
or any of the rest of it. And it's just so funny to be

(12:28):
that they make it sound like wechanged our policy when it's considering that they
just simply got owned with the law. Yeah, I mean I expect that.
You know, they're not going tooutright come and say, oh,
they were right and we were wrong. You know, they're never going to
do that, but it would benice if the press would report it accurately.

(12:48):
Um. You know, I seea fine line there between them trying
to suggest that, yes, wedid change our policy when we didn't.
And that's disappointing because the media's jobis to inform people, not form their
opinion. But it is what itis in California. We're going to continue
and there's nothing they can do aboutit. I love that now we're fighting

(13:09):
back and using their own tactics againstthem because part of this, there's been
a portion of the party that said, well, we have our principles,
and just because they fight that way, we're not going to fight that way.
And I understand that to an extent. Obviously, I'm not endorsing anyone
doing something untruthful or immoral or anythinglike that. But if they've set basically

(13:30):
the ground rules of the game,for us to put a higher standard on
those ground rules for ourselves is juststupid. Well, yeah, I mean,
I aim to win. In anyRepublican in office and Republican voters out
there, your goal should be towin, and you should use every means
available to you to win. Asfar as taking a high ground, I

(13:50):
don't even know if I you know, I don't consider it taking the high
ground by not taking advantage of thelaws of Democrats put in place. That
would be stupid. That would beYeah. I mean, I don't know
who would do that to just decidethat somehow that makes it more morally superior,
while you'll be a morally superior loserif you do that. So get
in the game and get it done. Yeah, you took the words right

(14:11):
out of my mouth. I meanI just I play to win, you
know, That's it. That's whateverybody should be doing. And if Democrats
want to put laws in place likethis that allow us to do that,
then that's fine. I mean,my personal preference, honestly, is that
we would revert back to the olddays where it was just a spouse or
a child or an immediate family memberwho could turn in your ballot. I

(14:33):
think that's more secure. That wouldbe my preference. I don't know if
that's going to happen. When Ithink is going to happen is, you
know, the very first thing they'regoing to do when we get back to
session in January is introduce some sortof bill that says you can't use any
boxes to collect ballots. I mean, you know, by all means,
go use a backpack or the trunkof your car, but don't use a

(14:56):
box. I mean, the willcertainly try to target us or weaponize union
employee, right exactly. And Imean the fact that they well and the
fact that they allow you to bepaid to go collect these ballots makes it
hyperpartisan, which they should have neverdone. So they can't they can't try
to act like you know, they'rethe ones that really they just want to
make sure everybody gets an opportunity tovote, because we know exactly what they're

(15:18):
doing, judging by the way theywrote the law. It's it's to me,
it's it's just I mean, itborders on assinine that you can literally
sit there and go, wait,these are the laws that you guys have
been I mean even before we let'snot pretend like prior to the law passing
in twenty seventeen that they weren't outdoing these activities. We know that they

(15:41):
were. They just didn't want tohave to go out and justify their legal
actions. So they legalize the actions, and now all of a sudden that
Republicans are taking advantage of it,they're like, no, no, no,
no, that law was only forus, is basically the way that
they're trying to make it sound.And it's again, it's so frustrating because
having worked in the field pre obviouslyand gone to the lengths that I've gone

(16:02):
to to comply with election law.I mean again, the stamp program in
twenty thirteen in the Andy Vidach specialelection, where we went out and said
no, no, no, wecan't touch your ballot, but we can
give you a stamp to return it, and so you fill it out right
now and we'll hand you a stamp, you put the stamp on, you
put it up for the mail.But I mean that was as close to

(16:22):
to harvesting as we could get atthe time. And now we're looking back
at the situation and going, well, now that it's so open and in
legal in twenty eighteen, the veryissue that you talked about, there were
there were there were precincts in LosAngeles County that had fifteen hundred, two
thousand ballots dropped at their precincts onelection day. And we're just supposed to

(16:45):
shrug our shoulders and go, oh, hey, no problem, Yeah,
where did those fifteen hundred allots comefrom? No, let's not ask those
questions. Let's not ask why thatperson had fifteen hundred ballots in their possession.
Let's not ask whether or not thoseballots wherever turned over not fully completed,
or that they weren't stolen out ofmailboxes or whatever the situation may be.

(17:07):
Let's just turn them in. Andwe looked at it in like CD
twenty five, eighty thirty eight,all the all the races that came down
to mail ballots literally is what decidedthe race, especially at eighty thirty eight.
Now you hear. Now you haveall of a sudden looking back on
it, going oh okay, that'show that happened. And now Dems are
mad that we're taking advantage of thelaw to combat against their use of the

(17:33):
law. It's it's crazy, Yeah, would you be introducing go ahead?
Well, I was just going tosay that again. The hypocrisy is just
kind of laughable because I really don'tknow why they thought we wouldn't take advantage
of it, will continue to doso until they decide to change the law.
Well. I think that the reasonthat they thought that is because a

(17:57):
lot of Republicans over the probably twentyyears around since the time Schwarzenegger was in
office, has been pretty compliant withwhenever the Dems wanted and kind of acted
had like a what's that term Stockholmsyndrome type mentality and like kind of asking
permission for things instead of just doingwhat we needed to do. And so

(18:19):
I think that they just expected,well, they're not going to fight back.
We haven't given them permission to fightback. Well, and it's hard,
right, but it's hard to fightback again when they hold every office
from the governor on downis for astate constitutional opposite the news hard to get
it. I mean, you're notgoing to get the Attorney General on our
side to look into any any corruptionor fraud, because you know he's right

(18:40):
there along with them giving them anod for what they're doing. But even
look at what's going on with theballots in general, not just the ballot
harvesting, but how many people haveyou heard from who have said they've received
a ballot at their home for someonewho doesn't live there, or they've received
two ballots for themselves, Or Ijust got an email from someone who doesn't
even live in this date anymore,it hasn't lived in this state for probably

(19:02):
five years, got the California ballotmailed to them in Florida. I mean,
the Secretary of State's office is acomplete mess, and he doesn't do
anything about it. They don't care. Yeah. I've friends that have moved
probably four years ago to one inparticular, to Arizona and has voted there
twice as a registered Arizona voter,but still got a ballot for La County,

(19:22):
Right, And there's nothing to keepthem from voting in two different states.
Right, That's the problem. Imean, you can, however,
many ballots you get, I supposeis how many you can mail in and
vote. I mean, that's ridiculous. Or look at the fact that there's
no way to even check. Whilethere is a way to do a California

(19:42):
chooses not to do it. Butyou know, if you have someone who
registers to vote, okay, well, obviously you have to be legally permitted
to vote in this state. There'sno they don't have anything in place to
check to make sure the person whoregistered is actually legally allowed to vote.
State of Texas does because they checkwith the federal database to make sure who

(20:03):
this person is is actually legally residingin the state legally allowed to vote.
Of course California doesn't do that.So when I remember when this bill passed
and we brought that up and theysaid, well, no, no,
there's you know, when you feellike your voter registration card it asks you
very clearly on your tour legally andso if anyone you know, marks that
improperly, well that would be againstthe law. Okay, well we're going

(20:26):
to look into that. Exactly.There's there's no enforcement of that law because
you guys refuse to consult with thefederal database to make sure people who are
voting are indeed allowed to vote.In addition, that's in addition to fact.
Like you talk about Agi Bassa,I'd go to Agi Bassarah and say,
how many times has this been enforced? Then? Since then? How
many times has either a county levelor the statewide level have you prosecuted someone

(20:48):
for flying on the voter registration card? How many times? Well? I
believe, but I believe they didtry to prosecute an elderly woman in northern
California the last election cycle because ofshe was doing phone banking or something,
and they tried to say that.I don't remember the circumstances, but I
do remember him trying to prosecute aRepublican woman that I do remember, right

(21:11):
well. I mean that's that's essentiallythere that they're directive right now, is
that it's right. The question ishave they found anyone? You can't tell
me, for one for one minute, there isn't some uh you know,
undocumented immigrant in the state of Californiawho filled out a voter registration card instead
screw it, come catch me,And you can't tell me that it hasn't

(21:32):
happened. You can't tell me thatof all the people that have reported these
additional ballots being sent around LA Countyor LA County, not just like anybody
in the state of California that theonly people are reporting it are conservatives.
So you're telling me that only conservativesare getting these additional ballots, right,
If Democrats are getting them, eitherthey're not reporting it, which is which
is should be either should be shoutedfrom the rooftops, or they have nefarious

(21:56):
you know of goals and not reportingit up. Well, I got these
extraditional ballots. Who I mean,my grandmother died five years ago. Well,
I guess I'm voting for and andand again there's no We've had cases
here in alec Kenny that I've thatI'm personally aware of of people whose parents
have been dead for a decade andthey got ballots this year. I mean,

(22:17):
this is this is this is notjust There's at some point where I
have to say that gross in competenceends and willful negligence or compliance in uh
some sort of nefarious act UH starts. So either the people that have been
done dead for ten years not comingoff voter rolls can can be you know,

(22:41):
UH can be grossing competence for youknow, five seven, seven months.
Okay, we screwed up when everythingelse, but when it goes on
for years and years and years andyears, then that becomes okay, what
why won't you remove them? Whywon't you comply with the court orders?
Right? I think the most momentthat they see that all of these ballots

(23:02):
are going out to people who aredead or have moved. Once they see
those ballots start turning Republican, that'llbe the day they suddenly clean up the
voter rolls. That's just a hunchon my part. I think it's a
good hunch. Yeah, And likeScott said, they are under a court.
They made a settlement with judicial watchto clean up the voter rolls,

(23:23):
and I think angels though, right, I think it's the Secretary of State
within the settlement said that they wouldsend updated procedures to all of the counties
reminding them a federal voting Rights Actthat I think with if they don't vote
in two federal general elections, whichconsidering the date of the settlement, were

(23:45):
technically from what I could tell,not where they've we have passed that too
federal general elections. So that's probablythe guideline that they're going by to still
not clean up the roles until theyabsolutely have to under that uttlement. So
you think they want free and fairelections since that's what they're always screaming about.

(24:06):
I'm not exactly sure that's what goodgoal is, but i will say
this that you know Republicans who areconcerned about putting their ballot in the mail,
which a lot are, for anumber of reasons, one of which
being they're concerned about the time it'sgoing to take to get to the registrar.
I mean, keep in mind,they can still count vote seventeen days
after election day because there's going tobe more mail going through. But people

(24:33):
have concerns that their ballot is notgoing to get there in time, it's
not going to be counted. I'vebeen encouraging people to sign up for ballot
tracks so that they can actually geta notification as to when their ballot was
received and whether or not it wasaccepted or rejected. Because if your ballot
is rejected, for instance, becauseof your signature, you have time to
fix that. You know, youhave time to cure that, But if

(24:56):
you don't know your ballot was rejected, you will never be able to fix
it. Encouraging people to sign upfor that so they can see what's going
on. But if they have concernsabout putting it in the mail, there's
there's a lot of options, andone of those options is putting them in
one of the GOP's ballot collection boxes, which are legit and legal and no
one needs to have any concern aboutthat. Will make sure that your bellet

(25:17):
gets to the registrar within the threedays that is required, probably sooner than
that. We've been telling them,you know, you really should turn those
ballots in every day, just tobe on the safe side, and you
know people want to get their ballotsin there. But yeah, you can
always go vote in person. Imean, my daughter, she turns eighteen
this week. She'll get to votein her first election, and she doesn't

(25:37):
want to do it by mail.She wants to go vote in person.
So I'm going to take her soshe gets that experience. That's how I
like to vote. I don't liketo vote by mail. I I've always
gone to the polls. I've neverbeen an absentee voter. So but there's
a lot of options for people outthere. But just now giving your ballot
over to someone who knocks on yourdoor. Probably not a good idea unless
you know them, right. Especiallywith the voter data that's out there,

(26:02):
it's very very available for them touse the voter data for nebulous or for
nefarious purposes, that is, goingout in and collecting ballots that they know
they don't want to have returned.And so they could go out and collect
a couple thousand Republican ballots and justtoss them in a dumpster or burn him
and you know, Burnham in thefireplace, or whatever the situation is.

(26:22):
So I think, like I said, it's a it's a pretty good safe
bet to make sure that you're theone returning the ballot, make sure you're
delivering it to a to a ballotdrop off location, whether it's a GOP
ballot drop off location or a ora county one one in your local county.
But again, it's it's very importantthat we start getting these ballots in

(26:45):
and that everything's up, So agreed, everybody, please please please make sure
you get out there and vote totally. Your vote does count, even in
California. It's especially true even ifwe think that Widen will take the state.
Your downballot races are crucial, andespecially city council and school board county
supervisors. That's where the bench isbuilt for the state party on either side.

(27:08):
So it's extremely important, even ifyou don't vote for president to vote
for those Amen, sister. Sowhether can people find you Senator Melendez on
social media or website? Well,so I am on Twitter, and so
under Twitter it's under Senator Melendez.You can find me on Instagram, which

(27:30):
is c A send Melendez scn Melendez. I'm on Facebook as well. That's
about all the social media I canhandle, you know, because I do
all my own social media, sothat's kind of like a warktime job.
I am on Parlor, although Iwould admit I don't use Parlor as often
because Parlor didn't seem like it's takenoff the ground just yet. But I'm

(27:52):
staying on there. You know,I'm keeping an eye. I'm hoping it
would be nice if Parlor could replaceTwitter. But I do make sure that
I post all of the pertinent informationas I can on all of these different
platforms, because you know, Ifeel like there's a lot of legislators out
there who just don't engage directly withtheir constituents that way, and people really
want to hear directly from their representatives, not from their staff members. You

(28:17):
know, you can't rely on themedia to get them all the accurate information
that they need, so I tryto do that as best I can.
So if people want to follow meon there, whether you live in my
district or not, we welcome youthere. In that way, at least
you know you're getting the right informationin the timely manner. Thank you so
much for joining us today, andhopefully we'll have some good news on election

(28:37):
night. God I hope so thankyou guys. I really appreciate you having
me on no problem, Thanks somuch again, and we will be right
back after we hear from some ofour sponsors. Do you feel like everyone
is yelling at each other, butno one is listening to each other or
themselves. I'm Cura Davis post ofjust Listen to Yourself weekly exercise and critical

(29:00):
pinking and drawing our talking points allthe way out to their logical conclusions,
because I believe when we picked thetime to examine our own talking points,
we can realize we're not always sayingwhat we think we're saying. Download Just
listen to yourself with Kia Davis oniHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. This Sounds Rightwith Jen and Scott the FCB Radio Network.

(29:37):
Welcome back to Sounds Right with Jenand Scott. We've got a great
guest today who is actually running forstate and Senate in California and actually has
a really good chance of winning eventhough it's in Los Angeles. He's an
immigrant from Iran and also an entrepreneuroperating small fashion and garment manufacturing business in

(30:00):
San Fernando Valley. So imagine thatactually having being able to buy clothes made
in California and in the USA.And his name, his name is Human
Salem. Thank you for joining ustoday, Human, Thank you. Thanks
guys. So, like I mentionedyou, you were born and I ran,
and before we get into talking aboutyour business, I wanted to just

(30:25):
ask a question. I guess sharea little something that you'd shared with me
before. So I we know eachother, we're friends in real life.
And well you've mentioned to me beforeabout the culture in California being so divisive
and politically charged, and now thewhole country has gone that way. Since
we have the conversation and the similaritiesbetween Tehran back before the revolution and California.

(30:51):
Now, can you share a littlebit more about that. Yeah,
So I'll even go a little bitfurther back. So my father was here
in la during the nineteen sixties.He went to college. He went to
cal Poly Pomona, got his aerospaceengineering degree. They went to Northrop University
the North of at the time hada graduate school for aerospace engineers, and
he actually was one of the finalpeople who got his diploma handed to him

(31:15):
by John Northrop himself. So Iwent back to Iran, got married,
had me, and moved back tothe US in nineteen seventy six. So
we're talking a little bit before therevolution. But when he came back to
the US in nineteen seventy six withmy mom and myself, I was I
was very very young, like threeyears old. They didn't intend to live

(31:36):
in the US forever. They intendedto stay here for a couple of years
because my dad got a job withBowen Bo was one of these contract jobs.
But he worked for blind for acouple of years or several years,
and then the revolution happened and thenwe were not able to go back.
So and then we stayed, andwe stayed happily. And you know,
I grew up in American and sowhat my dad had told me is that,

(31:56):
you know, when I told himthat I'm going to run for office
here in California, UM, onething that he said is, you know,
be careful because California today looks muchlike Iran of nineteen seventy nine,
the year of the revolution, withthe corruption, with the taxes and the
oppression of the people. Um,there's just so many similarities that that kind
of solidified the fact that I haveto run. Now, there's no question.

(32:20):
Am I gonna run. I'm gonnarun because we came from a country
and unfortunately, a lot of Americansthat you know or you know born American
don't realize how great America is becausethey haven't had the chance to live elsewhere
for the most part, especially incountries that are so oppressive. So for
me and my family, you know, this is it, America is it?

(32:43):
And if if if we go downthis other path that we look like
we're going, where are we gonnago? So now that's a there's a
lot of comparisons with other failed statesthat California is kind of heading down.
That same path. It's the oldadage that I have those who don't learn
from history doomed to repeat it.Here in California, they're making the same

(33:04):
mistakes they've made us where in theworld that have led to catastrophic problems in
whether it's in Cuba or in Venezuela, Iran, uh, former Soviet Union,
all these these uh, these thesefailed states in California, thinks somehow
they're going to get it right thistime. It's the it's the it's the
it's the same way that the Sovietthe socialists always put it of. Well,

(33:28):
it wasn't real socialism last time,or it wasn't real this, or
it wasn't really that. So capitalismis the natural order of the universe,
if you will, in the absenceof any system, two people that want
something from each other will work togetherin barter and create their own method of
transaction. So, and you know, capitalism seems to be what people will

(33:52):
gravitate to. Socialism is what isalways forced upon you. So it is
a field ideology. This never workedanywhere in the world, and to think
that it's now going to work inAmerica in twenty twenty and beyond is a
false line of reasoning because the foundationof socialism is flawed and it's so right

(34:13):
for corruption it. You know,the minute someone at the very tough realizes
what they can get away with,they're going to get away with it,
and the people will be damned.That's what has always happened. But capitalism
is a natural order of things.So let us be capitalists. Let us
practice what we want to do interms of our business, in our way
of life. We don't need tobe managed and micromanaged by government. Amen.

(34:37):
And that kind of brings us tothe topic that we really wanted to
talk to you about, and whichis California is a B five And like
you said, people the natural ordersfor people to want to make a deal
with somebody else, to trade theirlabor maybe for money or something that they've
created for money or food or whatever. And we always want to take care

(34:58):
of our own families first and ourselves, which is why socialism never works.
But everyone in the rest of thecountry seems to think even now that eighty
five is about uber and lyft.But can you tell us a little bit
about your business and how eighty fivehas affected you. Yeah, I definitely
will and it'd before even get tothat. Let me just tell you that
AB five, and it's it's aboutindividual's right and freedom to work or to

(35:24):
not work. So the idea ofsomeone can have an independent lifestyle. The
word independent for me really resonates stronglybecause for me, it's all about independence
and freedom. And I want towork on my terms. I don't want
to have to clock in, clockout, you know, go by certain
rules. I want to set myown rules. I mean, how much

(35:44):
more American do you want to bein my business? So I own.
I started a fashion design house aboutseven years ago, probably the worst time
to start a factory. So wedesign, we develop, and we manufacture
clothing right here in the San FernandoValley. It's unprecedented. Well, it

(36:04):
used to have. We used tohave nine thousand apparel factories in southern California
alone. We're down to about eighteenhundred and we're talking about you know,
the garment industry in Los Angeles isstill pretty huge, but we were about
nine thousand factories. And then ofcourse he had naften all the companies that
moved overseas, and now we're downto eighteen hundred and they're dwindling away.

(36:27):
But I started a factory at atime when you know everyone's going tech.
I went super low tech. Soin my business, we would have several
fashion designers that design different categories.So, for example, someone that's really
good at designing outerwear may not begood at designing children's So I had a
women's war designer, I had achildren's designer, I had an outerwear designer.

(36:49):
And these were all freelancers. Sodepending on the job, I would
know who to call and say,great, we have this project, and
this is the budget, and soon and so forth, and you know,
they would start designing hand in handwith the client. Now what the
government is telling me to do isput every one of them on payroll and
just let them sitting there. Oh, it's not feasible. I can't just
have people on payroll who aren't goingto be working. So it makes it

(37:15):
really difficult because this was a thiswas a great revenue stream, because this
is a service that we offer toclients, design services. I mean,
can you imagine the fashion design housethat doesn't offer fashion design services. So
we had to scale back on alot of things. So the government is
taking away my opportunity to earn arevenue and shutting down my revenue streams while

(37:36):
meanwhile increasing all of my expenses,taxes and wages and otherwise. So it's
becoming near impossible to survive in Californiaas a small business. And so yeah,
what we had we had to shufflesome things around and to obey the
law, we had to let goof a certain nerves that I'll be able

(37:58):
to work with for the most part. But it's it's it's kind of mickey
mouse. It's not the way Iwant to run a business, and it's
not the way that my people wantto work. I mean, it seems
that also that when they do that, it keeps you from scaling up your
business in a way that would makesense, Like you maybe you need a
quarter time person, but h andwant to just have them freelance so that

(38:19):
they can make a living elsewhere.And you can't really hire them as a
part time person because I would imaginethey're hourly rates would be a lot,
you know. Yeah, so afreelancer that designs for me may have five
or six other projects going on withother companies, and you know, so
they have their own ways of earninga living. But if it's okay,

(38:40):
great, now you're going to comeand work for me full time. Well,
I have to absorb all of thatcost, because otherwise they're not going
to come work for me, They'regoing to go do something else. It's
it's it's quite the disruption within myindustry. So it's it's not just uber
and Lyft, it's across the board. I mean even think about it,

(39:00):
but fitness instructors, yoga instructors,you know, these are all independent contractors
for the most part, at thebig gems um. You know, it's
just a complete disaster for business.No, I I agree. In fact,
you know, primarily a lot ofwhat I've done previously has been through

(39:21):
contract work. And while I didhave a business previously, I no longer
have that business, and then beentrying to work as an individual. And
here we have a B five thatcomes in. The it comes in and
interferes in my ability to contract withpeople. Uh, it interferes with my
ability to get work. But onthe other side, as you have been
saying, it interferes with your abilityto get the right help that you need.

(39:43):
Because when you're working with contractors andyou're paying them as contractors, you
don't pay them for their latency time. You don't you know that they're that
they're just sitting there. Uh,that that there's any slack in the quote
unquote in the system is absorbed bythe contractor. And in your prettular case,

(40:04):
now they're trying to tell you,well, now you're responsible for them
sitting there when they're not designing,when you even when you don't have work
for them to do, you stillhave to be paying them and uh.
And to me, that's a that'sa an invasion onto the the ability for
me to contract as a contractor andfor you, as someone who needs to
work, uh, to be ableto pay someone uh something rather than nothing.

(40:29):
And that's essentially what the choice isthat the state's leaving with AB five
is that would people rather have somethingor would they rather have nothing? And
uh and the state's kind of givingthem the choice that they're uh, they
either have to go all in onsomething drivers and all the rest of it.
Either you're full time with Uber oryou don't work at all. And

(40:50):
and I mean, I think ofall the different commercials we're seeing everything else,
of all the people who use itis exactly is what it's supposed to
be as a as a as apart time job is a filler in the
meantime yep ye. So yeah,they come after you in every way they
can, and it's it's you know, we're kind of like the ATM machines

(41:12):
for the state businesses. They cometo us and hit us with insane finds,
pass laws that make it difficult forus to work. Um, and
it's just unfortunate. It's super unfortunatefor companies in the state. Even if
Prop twenty two passes, you'd stillhave an issue with your industry because you
have not had an exemption cut exactly. So if so, if Prop twenty

(41:35):
two passes, it's a giant stepin the right direction because that takes all
the meat out of eight five.So what's left is all the small companies
like mine, which I don't thinkthe likes of Learning Gonzales and the restaurant
care about from that standpoint, ifyou know they're they're big fish was Uber
and Lyft and Postmates on these guys. But once they get their major carve

(41:57):
out through Prop twenty two, inmy opinion, the rest of AB five
is just decimated. There's no reasonfor it to exist. I totally agree.
And you know we've talked about that. Your businesses in the San Frando
Valley and part of that is whereyou're running for state Senate, also including
Calabasas Malibu, areas that have alot of entertainment industry people who generally work

(42:19):
as contractors. What have you heardon the campaign trail about AB five.
You know, it's so funny becauseso many people are so oblivious. You
know. I'll tell you I hada lady called me. She had just
moved to LA from New York.She was looking for a designer job as
an independent contractor, and I said, well, welcome to California. I
can't hire you, and no oneelse can either, and here's why.

(42:40):
And she started crying. She says, I just moved here. Well,
I'll said, yeah, you know, New York is you know, two
sides of the same coin. Really, between California and New York. On
the campaign trail, it blows meaway. What people don't know. They
don't realize it either. It hasn'tyet affected them. And I'll tell you
employers, a lot of them stillare not aware of the law. They
still say, oh, yeah,we have independent contracts, contractors and blows

(43:05):
my mind. It's like, well, wait a minute, do they have
a carve out? Are they don't? What are you doing? Are you
not aware? A lot of peopleare not aware or maybe they just don't
care. But on the campaign tracks, I can tell you it's you know,
when I start educating people and theyhear how insane this law is.
They come up to me, youknow, after a speech, and they
take me to the side and say, well, what can we do?

(43:27):
What can I do? And really, at this point, all we can
really do is vote on Prop.Twenty two and vote for you every Republican
and for that matter. But Ithink that a lot of people don't know.
I think they don't know about eightyfive because I think the pandemic shutdowns
have really made it where it hasn'thad its full impact yet because we didn't
have things like summer music festivals orsports camps or things like that where you

(43:52):
would always have independent contractors. Wedon't have that right now because of the
shutdown, so they're not sitting theeffect. Well, it's the greatest I
think A B five went into effectin January this year, and then of
course we have a lockdown almost youknow, in the first quarters, so
by mid March everything was shut down. That that's a great, great point.
We don't really know the effects andpeople really don't know the effects of

(44:15):
the salon. Hopefully we can getthis proposition passed and get some more Republicans,
business oriented Republicans in office to wherewe can repeal this thing quickly and
it'll never have been noticed. Right. That would be nice. Would be
no, no, no, notheir damage for once. That would be
awesome. I think that I thinkthat the point that I see for the

(44:37):
most part is that there aren't anyconsequences for voters decisions here in the state
of California. So when they goout and they vote for, you know,
Gavin Newsom or a particular ballot initiative, they think it sounds good any
of the rest of it. Butwhen the consequences come down the pike,
that's when they finally get upset.So I think that while I obviously don't
think that negative consequences is something Inecessarily would like to see, I at

(45:00):
the same time would would not mindthat Uber and Lyft pulled out of California.
Should should POP twenty two fail?Now, I don't think it will,
but I mean if if Uber andleft said okay, fine, if
that's the way you're going to be, we're out and wait and watch how
quickly ABY five gets repealed when peoplewho are out on a Saturday night realize

(45:21):
it's an hour and a half waitfor an Uber because Uber now has to
have them as as either Uber isn'tthere one or two, they have to
have a certain people number of peopleon as quote unquote employees, and therefore
limit the amount of drivers that areon at any period of time. With
enough inconvenience, we would get upsetand say what the heck gives? I

(45:43):
really hope that they'd be engaged beforein dealing with Prop twenty two and the
ability to defang ABY five now.But if they aren't, I really hope
that there are some consequences to comedown the pike that make voters wake up
and realize the consequences of their votingvoting patterns. You know, at the
end of the day, if wehave to lose Uber and Lift and all

(46:04):
those great technology companies, UM,I'm okay with that, as much as
it's going to hurt, because youknow, we can talk on and on
and on about how it has reduced, you know, deaths resulting from drunk
driving. Um. How it toimprove a lot of efficiencies. You know,
I have a My mother had togo to the doctor a few times
and I was not able to takeher, so I was able to get

(46:24):
her an UBER. That's an applymentor two. Um. You know,
these great technologies that originate from California, and the irony of it being if
they have to shut down in California, as much as it hurts, I
might be okay with it because I'lltell you it'll be temporary because the people
will not stand for it, andthere will be some sort of I hate

(46:45):
to use the term regime change comingfrom Iran, but I think we did
right um in California to where maybewe do have to have a temporary setback,
because you know, UBER was justabout to shut down before the judge
past the temporary border to keep itgoing until the election. They were minutes
away from closing. As much asI would hate to see that happen,

(47:07):
it just might have to happen.And I would be okay with that happening
because I know it would only betemporary. And then finally the people would
stand up and say enough is enough. We've got to find out, you
know, is Gavin news From governingfrom a standpoint of helping the people or
is he governing from a standpoint ofhelping his rich lobbyist friends and in the
in the union bosses and all thepeople in his back pocket. You know,

(47:30):
Um, that's not the kind ofgovernor that that's that's a dangerous governor
to be right. Well, Ireally appreciate you being on our show today
and uh and would like to giveyou the opportunity to kind of tell people
where they can find you, maybelearn more about your campaign and uh and
support you here in your state senaterace. Well, I really appreciate it,

(47:52):
appreciate the time both of you guys. You guys are doing great work.
So you can look me up atSalem twenty twenty dot com s A
L E. M. Two zerotwo zero dot com. You can learn
all about me there, you candonate there. We can certainly use some
help coming here in the last laststretch of this election cycle. And um,
you know, please do add myFacebook and Twitter and Instagram from the

(48:12):
website and h I tweet as muchas I as much as I can running
a full time business on a fulltime campaign and not being fully funded by
big special interest makes it so thatI am a one or two man army.
So um, you know, yeah, get to know me. I'm
sure you'll be pleasantly surprised. Asa Republican in California, you know we're
pre uh pre right of center,um. But as a Republican in California,

(48:36):
you know we're not. I don'tthink there's any Republicans today that are
going to disappoint the Liberals from asocial standpoint, right, I think I
think that that's true as well.So again, thanks so much for being
on the show today, and goahead and look him up. We'll be
back after this break here on Sal'sRight with Jen and Scott. This Sounds

(48:57):
Right Radio Network, Welcome back toSounds Right with Jen and Scott. We
had a great those first two sessionsthis morning with musim One as we're fantastic.
Always great to talk to her.She she, I mean, I

(49:22):
mean, obviously, when we're talkingabout the GOP ballot box situation in California
and how they defended it, wehave to talk about like other places in
the country that may have had someissues with their ballots and Fortunately enough,
I've been writing some of this stuffover at red State, and we have
covered a couple of these stories,including one out of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.

(49:44):
So to go back in Westmoreland County, Trump won that county in twenty
sixteen by thirty one points. Itwas a trouncing and someplace in the range
of about sixty five fifty five sixtythousand ballots he won by votes he won

(50:06):
by in that in that county,and out of coming out of that county
recently was the story that the vendor, the ballot vendor, had lost sixty
thousand ballots in that county. Remember, Remember the discussion was that Trump only
won that county by by a smallmargin, or not a small margin,

(50:27):
by a sizeable margin, but bya married margin smaller than the amount of
ballots that were lost. And whenyou're talking about Hillry, Clin't got a
total of sixty thousand votes in thatcounty in two thousand and sixteen and sixty
thousand ballots disappeared. That's a significant, significant, significant problem, very significant.
A lot of people don't remember that, and especially in these swing states

(50:51):
in sixteen that were so few votessometimes that decided that state, like out
of the whole big grand scheme ofthings. So like you said, like
that that amount could swing the entireelection, right it again and wide.
It just comes down to the yeah, right, so if if we had
suddenly that Trump lost Pennsylvania due tovote or fraud and the twenty electoral votes

(51:16):
decide the election. Literally, thisis this is not a joke of like,
oh, it's no big deal,a few people lost their ballots.
This is a much bigger, largerissue on the on the whole. So
it's just but you know, Twittersaid that voting by mail is safe and
secure. They started this whole thingthis week where when you log in you

(51:37):
have this big announcement talking about electionresults might be delayed and because of the
vote by mail things. So don'tdon't listen to people that on election night
claim that they won. And thenyou have to click on these other things
to see what else they say,And one is this resource page where they're
assuring you that the experts claim andsay that voter fraud has never been proved

(52:00):
in a mail election and we cantrust this and the postal service is totally
up to getting everything in. Butsorry, that's just an aside, no
way, but it actually plays directlyinto my next My next example is that
in Butler County, Pennsylvania. Thisis another article that is as at RedState
dot com now in Butler County,Pennsylvania, county that want Trump won by

(52:20):
thirty five points in twenty sixteen,election officials made a stunning and infuriated,
infuriating discovery. They figured that anunknown number of mail mail in ballots were
lost by the postal service. Soone trust, how do you even come
up with that? How do yousay? Yeah, what evidence do we
have of that? You know whatI'm saying, like the people, the

(52:45):
doubters, big, Well, anunknown number, how did you how do
you know any number? That's exactlyMy point is that to say an unknown
number one that doesn't help anyone.Are we talking five or five hundred or
five thousand two lost by the postals? Are we trying to get away from

(53:05):
vote by mail? There's something thatDemocrats have been pushing this entire time.
We all have to vote by mail, we all have to have these these
mail ballots. But now they're saying, well, it's it's it's up to
you. And that's exactly what theCounty said, I mean, if you
look here, it says in themeantime the county Butler County, a Bureau
of Elections director is urging those votersto go to the Bureau of Elections or

(53:27):
fill out provisional ballot at their pollingplace on election day. Well, and
then if we have to determine whichprovisionals are at or legit, that's going
to take so much time. Andin addition, dumbass, what is the
point of ordering a mail ballot ifyou're going to have to go and vote?
Now? So what about the elderly? What about those that can't go?
This is exactly what we get backto, this idea of opt in

(53:51):
mail ballots versus forced mail ballots.So people who don't want to get mail
ballots or getting them anyway sometimes twoand three and now we have a problem
where people who do want mail ballotsaren't getting them. So I just don't
understand with a with a party whohas been the party of choice, and
I use air quotes around that wantto remove people's choice whether or not they

(54:12):
receive a ballot, or whether ornot they can get a mail ballot if
they want one. I mean,this is so this is so asinine.
At this point, I just can'tget over the fact again the US Postal
Service lost an unknown number. Whatdoes that mean, right? Is that
just designed to make people doubt theresults if it comes out Trump. That's

(54:36):
exactly my point. Uly lost theballots well, the US Postal Service.
And again this is remember the endof August's earliest September, we had this
chorus from the left of saying tous, hey, everyone needs to get
on board. Everyone needs to teaneeds to help fight this, this shutdown
of the US Postal Service, thedisarming of the US Postal Service. They're

(54:57):
dismantling these these sorting machines and allthe rest of yet when they do have
the resources they need, they're incompetent. Not all of that. I do
have one friend that is a whatwould you call it, postal worker mail
deliverer, and she takes her jobextremely seriously. And because we were watching
baseball the other night and she washaving to get up really early, and
they're working really long hours here inCalifornia right now, like my mail doesn't

(55:22):
come till six or seven o'clock atnight regularly right now, And she said,
with the volume of election mail.It's just crushing. And so another
one of our friends is just dumpingon the side of the road. Isn't
that what's supposed to be happening here? And she was joking, of course,
and my friend would never do that, but yeah, again, it's
just to me, it's it's infuriatingthe fact that we've been told to believe

(55:44):
something and now they're saying, switchaway from it. I mean, if
you go on Twitter now and youlook at all the Hollywood stars are saying,
no more mail ballots, no moremail ballots. Everyone vote in person
now, when for so long theywere saying they shouldn't be any voting in
person, it should all be allway done by mail. Yeah, we're
going to kill people if we sendthem out there. Now they want to
They want you to stand in linefor hours. I mean, I guess

(56:07):
the little there the official ballot boxesaren't good enough for them anymore. It
all changes daily depending on what theythink Trump was doing or how they think
Trump might win. And so that'swhy there's no consistency. Consistency would be
something that you'd expect from someone whohad adults, someone had principles. Well,

(56:28):
I know that I'm going well.In La County, early vote centers
are already open, so they peoplecan go in there, and I would
suggest that bring your mail ballot withyou to exchange that at the site,
or even just turn your mail ballotin there. I know in my county
Inventora, we start on Saturday morning, and so I'm going to go on
up to the Reagan Library first thingSaturday morning and turn in my mail ballot

(56:50):
and vote right. It's it's importantto get it in to make sure that
you're delivering it. I actually droppedmine in the or my wife drop mine
in the mail ballot drop box herein Santa Clarita, and I was a
little leary about it, but I'vesince checked the website. There's an ability

(57:12):
to check your website, your localwatching officials websites to check to see if
your ballot has been accepted. Minehas been accepted, so I was excited
to see that and know that Ididn't have to go on election day to
vote provisional. So good. It'sagain it comes down to the fact,
like I said, that this isall about trying to maintain a certain level

(57:34):
of credibility with both the elections andthe postal service, and when there's so
much incompetence, so much finger pointing, it's not it's not like any one
person came out and said this wasmy bad or this was my problem and
their inability to fix it. Imean, look at there's another case coming
out of Texas where they are goingto have to reprint the ballots. This

(58:00):
case again twenty thousand ballots in Texasbecause there's a barcode issue on the ballot.
So get this the election officials,because they know that these are these
are ballots that have come back,they've been returned, filled out, so
they're not about to send them backout to voters and say, hey,
we fill these back out and getthem back to us. So what Trent

(58:22):
County elections officials are going to dois they're going to open these ballots and
transfer the votes from the old ballotthat was returned to the new ballot with
the correct barcode so that they canbe counted to the machine. So again
they we're supposed to not only trustthem now because they screwed this up once,
now we're supposed to trust these countyofficials in Tarrent County, Texas too,

(58:45):
to somehow go back and redo theseballots, filling them out on their
own. I mean, that's justcompletely crazy. Wow. If we come
through this with Trump winning, whichI think that that's the will of the
country, I really do, Iwill be astounded. Because they're throwing everything

(59:06):
they can at this right. It'sto me, it's just funny that they
that they have this idea that theycan't they can we can't touch it,
we can't even look at it.That it's all completely on the up and
up. We cannot question the credibilityof mail ballots. But yet, time
after time, twenty two thousand ballotsin Texas. We're not talking about five

(59:31):
or seven or a couple hundred.We're talking about entire populations of towns that
have their ballots rejected as a resultof a misprint on the part of the
county elections officials. Don't people provethese things? One don't they prove it?
And two once they prove it,don't they suggest a change. Aren't

(59:52):
they going to run a simulation oftheir election system in the months leading up
to the election, or are theyjust going to kind to let it sit
and hope that everything goes according toplanned come election Day? Well, we
know what the answer in La Countyis to that, right, as are
totally messed up. Super Tuesday wasthis year? Right? Again, they

(01:00:14):
just don't ever and again they it'snever like they actually accept that there could
be a possibility of malfeasance or incompetenceor even the potential for fraud. So
when or all of the above,right, So, when La County sends
ballots to people that they don't belong, LA County shrugs their shoulders and says,
well, it was brought to ourattention. And it's like, yes,

(01:00:35):
this case, this one case wasbrought to your attention. What about
all the cases that aren't brought toyour attention? That's the I mean,
this is this is what's so maddening, is like, well the system worked
here, Yeah, because a voterwho received the system didn't work because the
voters shouldn't be having to bring itto your attention. Right. And in
addition, in like another article thatI wrote, it reads date there was

(01:00:59):
a case where the voters had beenbringing it to the attention of the county
for years. They've been getting theseballots for years, and that every time
they'd send them back, not atthis address, they'd get notification cards about
voting rights and stuff, and they'dsend it back not at this address,
not at this address. So they'vereceived numerous, numerous examples of this is

(01:01:22):
not this person's not at this address. But so it's not just the people
at the DMV that are sleeping andwe're paying them to do that. It's
the people at the elections boards aswell. It's the same caliber people that
you'll find it the DMV and thepostal Service. I mean, that's exactly
what we have to remember, isthat it's not like there's a firewall between
a lot of these government entities thatkeep out in competence. I mean,

(01:01:46):
it's the magnet of incompetence right exactlyexactly point you're you're It's not like suddenly
like, oh well where it's it'sthe elections office. So those all that
accompetence you'll find at the DMV andthe postal Service. You aren't going to
find mind here like it's just againor again. This goes back to government
in its entirety inherently, inherently fails. It has to because if it succeeds,

(01:02:15):
people would there wouldn't be no needfor government. Any longer. Government
is in the business of keeping itselfin business. If they suddenly were resolving
problems, it would eliminate the needfor government. So if we had social
workers go out and eliminate social issuesthrough things, we wouldn't need have the
need for as many social workers.Government is in the business of keeping itself

(01:02:37):
in business. That's all it comesdown to. Yeah, they don't want
that pie to shrink at all,so they have to not ever really fix
the problem. Which a quick aside, there's the Rodney Smith, the lawnmower
man. Yes, so's he definedthemselves as a social worker, and he's
teaching these kids service first of all, because they go out and they mow

(01:02:58):
lawns for elderly people or disabled peoplefifty lawn challenge I think it's called.
And then he helps get them setup with their own business doing lawnmowing.
Now, my oldest son, whenhe was fourteen and fifteen, we lived
in North Carolina where people actually didmow their own lawns like southern California,
and we had large lots that peoplelived on, half acre to acre things.

(01:03:19):
He made two or three thousand dollarsa summer doing that and we kind
of did the same thing like Rodney, but we bought him the lawnmower,
but had him pay back over timeand had him pay for the maintenance on
it, so that he learned howto run a business. And that's what
he Rodney Smith does for these kids. And of course the government wants to
deny him a green card, sayingthat what he's doing isn't exceptional enough to
get a green card. Right,that's government at work, trying to have

(01:03:46):
true social work, effective social workkicked out of the country. It's again,
it just to me, it goesback to the fact that they just
they can never be about resolving album. It's just about like patching the hole
in the Titanic. Water is stillgoing to come in, think the ship's
still going to continue to think we'rejust going to slow the rate, which

(01:04:09):
it does because if we've actually fixedthe problem, we wouldn't be necessary any
longer. So it's it's it's maddening, but unfortunately, Jen we're out of
time. We've had a great episodetoday with Centa Melendez and and talking about
this. Uh. It's it's anissue that we all need to be aware
of and keep our eye on aswe move closer towards election day, Gen,

(01:04:32):
where can people find you? Well, first, I want to quickly
just say I don't want to endit on a sad or depressed note,
but just get out and vote.Just I want to encourage you to all
go vote asap. They can findme on Twitter at Jen van Laar,
Jen v a n l a aR and at red state dot com.
Sweet you can find me at HoundSizzle and also over at red State until

(01:04:57):
the next episode. We Love Yeahboo Oh. The FCB Radio Network first
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